


Jailer's Lament

by Ara (WalkUnseen)



Series: Ode to A Caged Bird [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dehumanization, Lorenzo's POV, Not main focus though, Not really super graphic but tagging explicit to be safe, Other, Referring to sentient beings as dogs, Rest of the M9, Slavery, Unreliable Narrator, and "it”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 17:57:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkUnseen/pseuds/Ara
Summary: He isn't unseasoned in this art.This carefully calculated curriculum of coercion.It is never about wanting them.No onewantsto sleep with dogs after all.((Drabble from Ode to A Caged Bird ))





	Jailer's Lament

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make much sense unless you read Ode to a Caged Bird but I guess you can try. 
> 
> As a writer I have to assume all kinds of points of view even if they are the worst, most twisted and unbelivably fucked up. But I often write drabbles of any "villians" or bad guys in my stories in an attempt to better understand their motivations and flaws and have that echo in the original work somehow.
> 
> I didn't really enjoy writing this but I think its also important to point out that rape isn't really about lust or wanting someone. Maybe there's an initial thought there and I can't speak for all situations but If anything its about control and power and taking someone else's power and control away from them. 
> 
> Lorenzo is no exception to this.
> 
> This is written in a similar manner to the other scenes where it isn't necessarily explicit or anything considering I never even use a single term for genitalia at all but it is still explicit in its own way since there's no denying what happens or the sequence of events that occur with the way I have written it. It's just not described in a way that people might be used to considering this character would not focus on the carnal part of any of it.

He knows what he is doing. 

He isn't unseasoned in this art.

This carefully calculated curriculum of coercion.

It is never about wanting them.

No one wants to sleep with dogs after all.

He wants to break them.

He wants to watch them shatter beneath the weight of what they agreed to. He knows it's worse if they say yes, if they agree to it. He knows what it does to them when they make an inescapable deal like this. 

He's never been a conuesir of mindless violence or lustful conquest like simpler things are. This is not base or carnal for him. It is business. It is a transaction that he makes them tick off because why should they get anything for free? 

He owes them nothing.

They are all nothing beneath him and three of them have done poorly to learn that so far. 

So he makes a deal. And they make it in return. And she chooses from the two of the most unbroken dogs and she picks the one he wanted least but it doesn't matter because either will do. 

Because it's not about attraction. 

He doesn't care for the thing or what it really is or what parts it has. He cares that it looks at him and it despises him where it should cower and whimper and fear. He wants to take all of that away from it. 

He cares not about their name or their race or who they were before any of this. The only thing that matters is that they are his and that they know that in every single way. 

Torture didn't work in explaining that. Tearing apart it's mind and flesh with tools and sharp things didn't work. So why not strip it of every last thing it has?

He trails it up the stairs. He makes sure it goes first because he knows it is worse this way. It is important that it walks to its fate and that it is not dragged there against its will. 

He makes it go inside before him. Waits for it, watches that flicker in its eyes and that murky turmoil and he relishes in it because it means it's slowly learning that it doesn't have any power here. 

When he tears it's flimsy barriers from it and traps it beneath him, he watches its face, eyes fogged with animalistic panic, and it's already crying. And he hasn't even done anything to it yet and that-- that is oddly satisfying.

The other, she did not cry, she did nothing but stare into somewhere else as he took what he wanted and it was a business transaction as pure and simple as could be. But he could tell it affected her. That she didn't come out unscathed. That he took away some of that bite in her. 

But she did not cry. 

Not like this one. 

This shaking and anxious thing that skitters and squirms beneath his searching fingers. 

He had hoped to do the same to her guard dog. That vicious mutt that has tested him since the beginning. Always snarling and growling in its cage even when he laid a whip into its back. But she did not choose that one and he is _not_ a thing of mindless violence.

There would be other opportunities to put that thing in its place in the future anyways. 

For now he has this frightened and fragile thing beneath him and he knows exactly how to shatter it. These ones always broke down far easier. As if something in them so prided itself on domination that when met with something more powerful they folded beneath it.

It was easy to show them who was in control. 

He doesn't talk. Because he can hear that panicked hitch in its breath with each pass of his hands and he hasn't even done anything yet and its already falling apart beneath him and that base part of him wants more of it. 

He is not a creature of lust, yet there is something primal and enticing about tearing something apart beneath him. Maybe it is because at the end of the day they are food to him. Prey animals. Dumb and glaze-eyed and worth nothing more than the meat on their bones or the coin they may turn.

They were all made for him to conquer and kill.

And he can't help sinking his teeth into the mewling thing beneath him. It's skin tinged with fear and blood sharp. And he wants more of it.

Humans always tasted the most alluring of any of the races he's butchered. Something about their incessant fear of the unknown, the way it curdles their blood, keeps their young tender and prime and their cutlets sour with the sweat slick tang of fear.

And he wishes he could just eat the brittle thing beneath him, snap its marrow between his teeth and pick at its bones, but he knows he can turn a handsome profit on things like this. On whip thin mutts with delicate wrists that bend beneath his fingers. That there are others who would find it enticing when cleaned up and shaved and collared like it is. That they want something that can bruise as easily as they desire.

He cares for none of that. 

He's only enthralled by the taste of its blood and the slivers of meat he tears from it because he knows he can heal it back to new and none will be the wiser. 

He has to remind himself why he is really here. And it is hard, caught up in the call of sweet iron on his tongue.

He is here to break it, not make it a meal. Yet. He could always turn it into dinner if it proved far too unruly.

He keeps it on its back.

It's arms limp to either side of it and it does not protest because it knows its friend is dying downstairs and it does not hold power here. He wants to watch its eyes. He presses rings of bruises into the underside of its thighs and it just watches the ceiling and he can tell it's trying to escape up there as he bends it. 

That doesn't last long. 

It screams and its choked and desperate and it claws at him and he lets it because it does _nothing_. It falls limp again when it realizes that and it stares back up at that ceiling but he can still see it shattering. He can see the fragile pieces of its ego and sense of self clattering around. Lost and untethered in there and he ruts against it and he watches it fragment even more with each panicked whimper that leaves it.

It is the first time he has seen it truly break and he relishes in it, doesn't care for the blood and the tearing and the way he's ruining this thing under him because he's watching it fall apart and he chases that, snaps himself against it and sinks his teeth back into it. 

There's a moment when he thinks he might have killed it. 

When a bleating animal cry leaves it that's so desperate and afraid that he thinks he must have torn it in two and it falls limp and the stench of iron is intoxicating now and everything between them is slick with crimson. But he can still feel it's pulse when he wraps his hand around its throat and under its jaw and he can't help but squeeze because it's so fragile. He could crush it, he could kill it, and every part of him wants to because it is beneath him and it is prey but he has to keep it alive. For profit and gain. 

It mewls and its awake again and its eyes are rolling and terrified and it looks like every animal he's ever seen caught in a snare and he can't help but grin, growling and feral and wishing he could tear its throat out and feel the life bleed from beneath his jaws. 

It's strange how the closer he gets to that precipice, that unrestrained animalistic climax, the more frenzied his thoughts get. The further he hunches over it and the more he has to try not to rip it to pieces beneath his searching hands just because he _can_. The more he has to resist the urge to string out its intestines and flay its skin and sink his teeth into the junction of its neck and pull at the strings and sinew until its cries turn into gurgles. And he wants to pop its limbs out of its sockets and sink his thumbs into its eyes and watch it writhe and cry and die under him and- 

He watches something wither in its eyes when he finishes. 

He lets it escape from underneath him, let's it linger as far away from him as it can. Let's it bleed and shiver and shake on the far side where he watches it practically fall apart in its own thoughts. 

He grabs it when he thinks he's given it enough time to think, when he's intrigued by the leather around its neck that he didn't notice before. He watches it panic, he watches it realize he isn't human in every sense of the word, that he isn't anything it knows anything about when he presses against it. 

He asks what it is willing to give for it. 

It tells him everything and he wants to watch it _choke._

It cries and gags and he doesn't care if he's killing it anymore, he just tangles fingers in its hair, holds it there and drags nails across its scalp until it bleeds. He lets it black out. Lets it fall limp and he marvels that it didn't use its teeth on him to escape and he wonders if its learning or if it's already learned that it's worth nothing here. 

He presses it face down into the mattress the last time.

Watches it weakly scrabble and claw at the sliding pool of satin and its skin is so mottled and bloodied it's hard to remember it looking like anything else. It screams again and he didn't think there could be more blood but there is and it's weaker now but it's clinging onto something and he wishes he could kill it like this. Wishes he could feast on it as it cools beneath him and around him. 

And he's never heard that sound before. It's almost like hiccups but he thinks it's diaphragm is spasming and he presses his weight against it even more and it only grows more frenzied. 

He thinks he hears it say something.

Thinks it tries to beg or plead, but there's just the thrum of blood in his ears and the grind of his teeth as he resists the urge to tear that lithe, flexing muscle from its shoulder and devour it and make it devour itself before it dies. He wants to make it choke on it its own flesh and blood and understand that it's place in the food chain is under him and will _always_ be under him as he ruts into it and claims every last part of it.

It does not move for some time, even when he finally leaves it be.

It's head turned to the wall and eyes empty and he knows he's accomplished what he came here for. 

He goes to see that the deal is complete on his end.

It fulfilled its part of the bargain and he is not a cruel being, but a pragmatic one. He ensures the others are fed, he does not miss the way she watches him and he revels in the wariness he sees there. He does not appreciate her anger but he can work that out of her another day.

The mutt he had wanted snarls at him. It bares its teeth and leaps at the bars and he wishes it had been the one upstairs. That he had forced it to crawl on its hands and knees and made it bow and break, but he has a different one upstairs. One he thinks he's finally ruined enough to build back up into a polished and sellable good. 

Unless it has bled out onto the sheets already. 

If it has he will just feed it to its friends and take his own share of the meat. 

It is not dead when he returns though.

It is awake and it watches him and it finally has that fear in his eyes he was looking for. It looks at him like any good dog should. Scared of the hand that feeds. 

It shrinks away from him, it cowers, it follows all of the right steps and he can't help but be somewhat disappointed because that means he can't watch it break again. 

The look in its eye turns into anger when he threatens the others and he can't help but grin down at it. 

It seems to realize its mistake, but it's too late. 

He saw that fire and he knows it's still there which means its not broken in quite enough yet. 

There's still some polishing to do. 

He heals it. He puts it back. He leave it down there among its kind and he says nothing because he doesn't need to gloat or jeer or make some display of it.

It is worse this way.

That silent unknown in their heads as they watch their companion and try to figure out what was done to it. And they have ideas, he knows they do, he watches those little gears turn in their tiny minds and watches them draw their conclusions and glare at him and the unknown is so much worse than knowing for sure and without a doubt. 

He has a feeling it will say nothing to them. 

Cowardly as it is. He thinks it might run from this its whole life. And it won't matter. Because he saw that spark of fire and he is not finished with it yet. Not until he can snap his fingers and it does anything that's asked of it. There are people who will pay handsomely for a perfectly broken in mutt and he intends to deliver even if that means he has to do that again and again until it either expires or yields. 

She is different. 

He can't help but elevate her to a level above the others. There's something admirable about the way she has fought him tooth and nail no matter how much he has ripped her up and a part of him does not want to sell her because he wants to be the one to eventually break her. 

He can see that it affects her.

That the choice she made is not one she made lightly. Her eyes had lingered on him when he led the other back into the cell. He knows he made the right decision on choosing to bring her along to the coast even if he doesn't plan to sell her there. He'll have plenty of time to groom the other into a perfectly sellable condition before he gets there. He knows how much some of those people there are willing to hand over for these types. He wishes he could bring more of them. Bring the feral one and fix it up too but he has to be careful and he can't be greedy and he must choose only a few and so it has to be those two. 

He knows it will hurt her to watch him tear down the other into something unrecognizable to her. And he knows it will hurt her to know she decided its fate because she couldn't bear to watch her own guard dog get hurt.

He makes preparations for their departure up top, reading over the letter again and ensuring that he knows every detail of it. He's never seen anything like what it depicts but he will keep an eye out for it. There are also other slaves to transport into the empire as well, ones that had tried to escape these walls but didn't make it. 

He thinks they are foolish for even trying.

He does not expect the shouting the next day, one of the underlings tearing up the trap door and barking for help and he orders those nearby to follow, fearing the worst. That somehow the lot of them have broken from their collars and are retaliating down below. 

He finds nothing like that. 

He finds the mutt, panting and covered in an arterial spray of blood that drips down its face and bathes its front in red and its crouched over one of the underlings and it has a knife and he doesn't understand how the fuck it got ahold of one. 

Absolute incompetence. 

He watches the tiefling near it stiffen at the sight of him and he can see where her clothes have been torn and shifted and he knows this pack of starving and stupid wolves has been down here trying to do things they shouldn't be. 

He barks an order at it when it's about to stab the human beneath it. Watches rage snap into fear in an instant and the thing stumbles back and away from its own prey and its holding the knife out in front of it like it will do anything to stop him. 

It's first mistake was thinking it was anything but prey. 

He extends his hand and expects it to heel but it refuses and he doesn't want these slobbering imbeciles he has to work with thinking he can't break in a simple slave. He doesn't like that defiance in its eyes.

He will make it pay for it later. 

He grabs the tiefling and tosses her out to that snarling and hungry pack and he doesn't care if they tear her apart because his pet should have heeled and done as it was told the first time. He watches it, watches its resolve crumble as the wolves close in on its friend and he watches that knife waver and he can't help the smile because he knows he's won. 

It approaches him, slinking and hunched and slow, weapon extended still and he doesn't like that reluctant obedience. He wants total control over it. He grinds its flimsy hand beneath his own and drags it forward and hisses in its ear and he _will_ not hesitate to let them tear her apart the next time. He will make sure it watches every brutal and bloodied second of it so that it knows that it is its fault and no one elses. 

He calls off the others and he collects the collars of those who will not be making the journey. Leads the other two up top and to the carts. 

He says nothing to it. He lets it ruminate on what might happen later. He can practically hear it trying to figure out what he will do and that is far more satisfying than any immediate punishment. 

He asks if they have seen the ocean. He doesn't think either of them have. He doesn't think it will ever see it outside of the context of a window once he sells it to the highest bidder. 

He knows once he cleans it and refines it and grooms it that someone will buy it to keep in close quarters. It is no good for labor and it is far too thin. But it is delicate and it has hair like fire and there are many a potential buyer for those criteria. 

He makes it sit beside him. He can see it trying to stay together next to him and it's practically leaning off the seat and he can't help but relish in the thrill of being so feared by something. 

He knows where he plans to stop the carts. He knows where he left that friend of theirs to rot and be eaten by vultures and the sun. 

He can see the realization in the mutt first, it's eyes wide and searching as it looks to her and she does not seem to notice. 

He asks if they buried him here and she growls at him and he's amused by it. That storm in her eyes. She does not fear him, not in the ways she should and he almost admires her for it. 

He turns to ask it because he knows it will answer. It is already weighed down by the fear of what awaits it and he dares it to test him any further. It points to a grave, marked with a shoddy stick marker and nothing else.

It's pitiful really, but fitting for such a pitiful death. 

He watches her shatter at the foot of that churned earth and he wants it, he wants her to do that for him. He lets the other know, wraps a hand around the back of its neck, feels the jump of its muscles, let's it know it was weak where she was strong and he watches it shatter a bit more at that and he smiles. 

He snaps that flimsy grave marker over his knee, breaks the meaning of that thing he killed and he uses it to start a fire. 

He makes it kneel at the foot of it. He makes it wait while he paces and he lets dusk tick into dark and the crawl of predatory things around them. It says nothing, head bowed and waiting and its obedience is enticing. 

He tells it the situation. He lays out its options and he knows where this will end but he amuses it, let's it chase that idea of hope. Tugs at that pendant that means nothing to him but everything to it and he watches it crumble. He threatens its goblin and it crumbles further and he can tell it knows where this is going. He can see it in glazed eyes and the way it's looking everywhere but him, chest flighty and fast like a caged bird. 

It says what he wants eventually and he drags it to its feet. He knows she is watching. He counts on it. He needs her to understand the damnation she's set upon it. 

He knows he has to be careful this time. That potions and healing are in short supply out here. But he can't help that spark of hunger, remembers the taste and bite of flesh across his tongue. He can't over indulge this time though.

He will have to break it down differently.

He lets it ruminate and fear and kneel in front of him. He makes it eat before he does anything. Thin and waif may be alluring to some buyers, but skeletons are not and he can't have it starving and it didn't touch an inch of the food he had left out from before. It warbles, it tries to protest with its eyes but he knows it lies. He offers it the meat, orders it to take it. He knows what this will do, he knows it is not as dumb as its prey instincts make it seem. 

He can see the realization in its eyes, the moment it knows the taste is different and far too close and he can't help but smile and bare his teeth because he knows how humans think. Cannibalism is one of their worst taboos and they even have amusing tales of it turning their people into monsters. He can see it panicking, throat spasming and he grabs it before it can expel it. 

He forces it to swallow the cured meat, makes sure it eats every ounce of the human child he carefully prepared because he won't let his hard work be wasted on behalf of this mutt's delicate sensibilities. 

It's just meat after all. The taste may vary but it's all the same to him. 

It's all food. 

It coughs and shudders and tries to crawl away from him. He lets it, let's it curl up away from him for a moment as it processes what it just did. 

He does not wait long. He knows how he will break it down this time. He can't rip it's skin apart with his teeth or tear it apart underneath him so he will have to move slowly and he wonders if this will shatter it more than before. 

He peels its flimsy barriers away, watching that growing anxiety and dread and letting his fingers linger and trace and he can see that confusion in it now too. It's brow furrowing and frowning and he knows it thinks this is so much worse because it can't escape when he's pretending to treat it like an equal and not an animal.

He watches its face turn flush and its eyes darken and turn pained because it doesn't understand why and he had forgotten how satisfying it was to watch these kinds try and fight their own bodies responses. He knows how to use its confusion and fear against it. Every part of it. 

He says all the things it never wanted to hear. Tells it it is nothing, that its worth is only measured by the collar on its neck and the brand on its hand, that it's pathetic. Chokes it with that leather chord and tells it it would get on its knees for anyone and he makes it choke on him again because he can. He tells it this is where it belongs, where it will learn to belong even if he has to do this a thousand times and it's shaking and gasping when he lets it go and there's drool trailing down its chin and he swipes it away with his fingers and watches it flinch away and there's a content rumbling growl in his chest at the sight of it. 

He continues his onslaught on its nerves, feels the tremble of it beneath his fingers, watches its face pinch and trails of liquid sluggishly make their way down its cheeks the ruddier its skin gets. 

It does not fight him, not until he trails his fingers across its hips to grab it fully and it panics under him, keening and mewling. There's nails dragging along his neck and he recoils because he didn't expect it. There's the urge to kill it, the primal predator urge to tear this prey animal's throat out for trying to escape its fate, but he resists it.

Seizes its flailing ankle and rips it back underneath him. Wide, frightened rabbit eyes stare up at him and he threatens it, threatens to break it so it can't walk ever again and it goes limp and pliable beneath him again like it should be. He'll make it pay for that tomorrow. He thinks that disobedience is worth at least one of its goblin's fingers. 

He works at it slowly, watches it squirm beneath him and try and understand why it's body is betraying it. Watches that betrayal settle across its nerves, eyes rolling in its sockets and a panicked whine leaving it.

He doesn't care if it finds pleasure in anything he's doing. It's not about that. It's about control. He needs to show it that it owns nothing here, not even its own physiological responses. That whatever control it thinks it had before does not apply here. That all of this, all of it, is his until he turns it over to a new owner. 

He can see it tearing something apart inside of it the further along he gets. Some carefully constructed paragon is being demolished in there. He watches it turn to ruins when he cants its hips and takes what he wants from its flesh. Watches it turn to ashes when he forces it to finish with a strangled, reluctant, and choked off cry before it falls silent and limp and all but dead beneath him. Eyes staring endlessly and vacantly and now-- now he thinks he's finally done it.

That he's finally proven to this thing it has no control here. 

It doesn't stop him from chasing his own completion, still hissing promises and truths into its ear even if he knows it can't hear him where it's gone into its own head. Some part of it will retain it in there. Some part will remember it as the truth. 

The desire to tear into its flesh only burbles and grows, hot and heavy in him and he wants to feel flesh, spongy and giving between his teeth, blood welling on his tongue and satiating a forever hunger stuck inside him. But he can't and he resists because he is _not_ a slave to his baser instincts. It doesn't stop him from pressing more bruises into it though, temporarily satisfied by the give of it beneath his fingers in lieu of sundering it into a meal.

He makes it say that it's nothing in that dead hollow echo, watches it parrot it to him when he wraps his hand around that pendant it wears and pulls. Forces it to snap out of whatever small safe space its tried to crawl into in its head, let's it scrabble at the bed roll and him and push at him when it remembers where it is, listens to that low whining distress and ignores it. Ignores the way it scrabbles at his hand and tries to pry that insignificant thing free from his grasp. Ignores the way it asks him to stop, the way it begs, the way it says no and please and don't.

It means nothing to him. 

He lets it keep its stupid necklace but he doesn't let it keep its pride. He tells it to stop struggling, that it's useless, that it's too late for any of that, that it agreed to this. 

Wraps a hand around its throat and squeezes. He likes the way it sounds when it chokes, the way it feels, that panicked spasm of its muscles, the way its eyes stare up at him, watery and bloodshot, and the way it knows that he holds every ounce of power here. 

That he can do whatever he wants to it and it can't stop him.

He hounds after that, that fire he can see crumbling in it, rocks himself into it until he finally stutters and it's gasping beneath him and seizing because he's taking the air out of it with both hands now and he never thought killing something could feel like this.

It's eyes start to roll into the back of its head and he remembers why he's here. He lets it breathe but keeps his fingers around that pale purpled throat, knows the collar will cover it up, and it gasps and shudders around him and he can't help but lose himself to that. Snaps into it, desperate and frenzied until there's nothing left.

He doesn't leave when he's finished with it.

He lays beside it. Listens to it breath. Watches it stare into nothing, still and limp where it thrashed and cried moments ago. Watches its eyes eventually slip closed. 

He wonders what it's thinking. He always does with these types. He wishes he could tap into their thoughts to watch them deteriorate and spiral. Wishes he could be party to that exact moment they accepted their position in the world order he had created for them.

He lets it know he was displeased with its disobedience the next day. 

Tells the bard to tell the Nest to take one of the goblin's fingers and it lunges at him, but she holds it back and he watches it squirm and its face scrunch and fall slack and he knows it's remembering. It goes limp and unmoving in her arms and its fascinating knowing he did that to it. He watches its eyes skitter about, seeing nothing but everything trapped inside its little skull.

The days travel is uneventful and the hours wane into night and it is slow going but there is no need to rush. 

There is no one coming after them this time. 

It does not move or speak or even seem to know where it is next to him. It's staring ahead and its face is blank and he's not sure where it's gone but he doesn't like it to think it can just escape him like that. 

He cracks his hand across its face when they finally stop, watches it panic and startle and glance about it like it's confused why the day has turned to night and he turns to her because he can't have this being the norm for it. 

People want broken in things, but not utterly broken things after all. 

She just snarls at him and he doesn't appreciate it.

She hasn't learned her place yet and he's all too eager to teach her. She pulls against him and he can't have her thinking she can fight him like this and so he threatens the thing beside her, watches it try to slink away and he snatches its wrist with his free hand and he tethers them both to him. It whines and claws at him but he ignores it because he can see that cracking in her resolve, that dart of true fear in the anger now. 

There's a faint whistling sound before something slams into his armor and he lets its wrist go to grab it. It's a crossbow bolt and he barely has time to shout to the others before she's grabbing his arm and kicking him backwards and there's the sounds of shouting now all around him and in the dark. She snaps her chains with one movement and he remembers exactly why he admired her. 

She stays toe to toe with him, matching each step with her own and even chained at the feet and unarmed she does not falter. Even when a fog rolls in and he aims for that spark of metal around her throat she holds her own. 

It's when the cloud fades, when he looks around to see the others, those pitiful dogs and mutts armed and staring him down he is truly angry. 

These pathetic insects think they can kill him? 

This herd of lowly blank eyed cattle? 

Do they really think they can topple the thing that was made to hunt them? 

Pathetic. 

There's a voice that echoes from the dark and the area bleeds into light and there's a wraith approaching him, because he killed that one. He tore its chest open and watched the life leave its eyes. But it's here now and he doesn't understand how and he's never felt fear before but there's something unnatural about it that has him pausing. It turns to anger when it taunts him, when it has the audacity to poke at him when he could just kill it again. 

They leap at him, they slash at him, they try and tear him down but he reminds them he isn't human, that he is not beneath them or equal in any way. 

He contemplates fleeing only when his spell is cut short and arm severed at the wrist. 

He is not arrogant to think fleeing is not an option.

He can find them again. 

There's fire slamming into him and it eats up his sides but he does not scream even as it devours him because he's looking at it. That wretched dog he crushed under his heel and showed the merciless cruelty and truth of the world and it can't be the one to kill him. It can't. It could have been her, the one who cut off his hand, the one he's tried to best since the beginning and who had risen up against him again and again. Because she is something formidable, something strong and unyielding.

But not it, not this pitiful and wretched thing standing before him where he is forced to kneel now instead of the other way around and he snarls at it even as his lungs sear into nothing. 

It can't kill him, not this pathetic mutt he tore down and apart under him. 

It can't kill him he because won't let it. 

He refuses to die at the hands of something weaker than him he refuses to---

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very glad Lorenzo is dead as hell in both my story and in the canon story line.


End file.
